Wednesday, December 16, 2015

While the main players in the abortion industry have been relatively quiet regarding Anna Yocca being charged with attempted murder after trying to self-abort at 24 weeks with coathanger, pro-abortion columnist Jessica Valenti is not.

Planned Parenthood and NARAL probably understand it doesn't make sense to go all in defending a woman who severely injured her viable son while trying to kill him. That's not the best PR case since the kid survived with horrible injuries. But the only brand Valenti has to protect is her being more pro-abortion than anyone else which is why she argues Yocca's plight deserves our empathy.

In a just world, this news would provoke empathetic outrage – Yocca’s desperation and inability to obtain a safe abortion prove that we are shamefully failing women.

In a just world, this news would provoke empathetic outrage for the defenseless child, not the attacker. You know, the one who Yocca violently attacked and grievously injured. Unsurprisingly, Valenti doesn’t mention the injuries the child sustained. That might lead her readers to place their empathy towards the human being who deserves it.

He will need a medically-experienced foster parent, remain on oxygen and take medication daily because of problems with his eyes, lungs and heart stemming from damage caused by the coat hanger.

Valenti also provides no evidence that Yocca was unable to obtain a safe abortion. We've heard nothing as to why Yocca waited until 24 weeks and then tried to self-abort. Murfreesboro is less than an hour from Nashville, where there is an abortion clinic. Yocca had a job at Amazon fulfillment center. She has a boyfriend. She’s 31. She’s not some scared teenager without any resources. She’s a grown adult. Next, Valenti will be asking for a empathetic outrage for Kimberly Pappas, not the newborn baby boy she suffocated in a bag in her desk.

If you have more empathy for the woman stabbing her unborn child with a coathanger than the child she is stabbing, you may just be a psychopath.

Valenti continues:

But we don’t live in a just world. We live in a world, in a country,
where women who want to end their pregnancies are considered
contemptible. And so Yocca, after her 24-week fetus was delivered, was arrested for first-degree attempted murder.

Well, that's what happens when you repeatedly stab a viable child with a coathanger. And yes, that's more just than ignoring what Yocca did or treated her actions like they deserve empathy. Also notice how Valenti calls the child a "fetus" after the child was delivered. I guess that allows her to completely ignore what that child went through and will go through the rest of his life because of his mother's actions.

Valenti then goes after a police officer who responded as any sane individual would:

In an interview with local media,
police sergeant Kyle Evans – displaying an incredible amount of
anti-abortion bias – said that Yocca “wanted to kill the child” and that
she “made very incriminating statements ... regarding wanting to end
the child’s life”. (Apparently wanting an abortion is criminal.)

Well, yes in this case (as the Washington Post explains) attempting a self-abortion and injuring the unborn child is against the law in Tennessee. How is it anti-abortion bias to point out the obvious (Yocca "wanted to kill the child")? Is it because he used the word "child"? Is the 1.5 pound baby boy not a child because Yocca tried to kill him?

The Guardian had to issue a correction to the piece after Valenti originally claimed thousands of women were dying "every year" before Roe.

This piece was amended on 15 December 2015 to clarify that thousands of women died as a result of illegal abortions before Roe v Wade. An earlier version of this piece said thousands died every year.

That’s just embarrassing. Valenti has been writing about abortion for more than a decade yet she still thought thousands of women died every year before Roe v. Wade? It takes an epic level of thoughtlessness and complete lack of research to believe that. Or maybe she intentionally lied and thought she could get away with it.